


Melancholy Flowers

by accioteacups



Series: Perditus [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Marauders' Era, Other, POV Remus Lupin, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 20:22:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4406258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accioteacups/pseuds/accioteacups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus gets caught stealing flowers from someone's garden -- Every Wednesday and Sunday, I come to visit you, and every Wednesday and Sunday I walk the same route.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melancholy Flowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [provocative_envy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/provocative_envy/gifts).



> This is the first piece of writing that I've ever completed, so I hope it's okay!

Every Wednesday and Sunday, I come to visit you, and every Wednesday and Sunday I walk the same route. Usually, I buy flowers, blooming lilies from the florists, crumpled roses from the supermarket, wilting peonies from the petrol station. Once, a small cactus in a bright red pot. I know you never had a preference, that “it's the thought that counts” and you just like to know I remembered, even if it is last minute. Sometimes, I forget, or I'm running late, or I don't have the cash. Sometimes, I steal from this garden. Not many flowers, just a few stems, so it's not noticeable. I don't want to upset anyone, not for you. You'd be so upset if you knew I’d been stealing for you.

I go on Wednesdays because I remember how you used to smile, and laugh, and beam when you realised that we were finally halfway through the week. You'd drag us out of the library, down to the lake, even in the snow and rain, just to breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. “Feel that?” you'd say,“that's life! That's the ebb and flow of your very existence!” Because you believed that joy shouldn't just be reserved for Friday afternoons, even if you could see the appeal of them. “What's the point of life if you spend most of it waiting for Friday?” You'd laugh. “You live through the rest of the week, you might as well enjoy it!”

Today's a Sunday. I always liked Sunday's with you. You'd spend them pottering about, finishing things, tying up loose ends before lunchtime, and then running wild in the afternoon. “Let's go for a walk!” You'd say, skipping along corridors, humming to yourself. On this Sunday, it's spring. Your favourite time of year, warm skies with streaky white clouds, the idea of warmth in the air. On this Sunday, I'm running late. I've no time to stop for flowers at a shop, so I rush down the alleyways, towards that one garden. Luck is in my favour today, there's a handful of wild daisies, the tall ones you'd make chains out of in the summer and wear on your head as a crown, then you'd make another for everyone there, so we'd all be garden royalty together. I bend and pick seven, with a vague idea to make you a crown with them. As I straighten, I hear a voice and freeze.

“Young man! What do you think you're doing?” I turn and see a woman in her late fifties walking towards me, straw hat blocking the sun from her eyes.

“I-I need the flowers. I'm running… running late.” I stutter out feebly. I imagine your reaction if you could see me, laughing and a little disappointed.

“Well, I demand to meet the young lady worthy of such theft, repeated theft I might add,” she says, and I know she's noticed me borrowing from her garden.

“Sorry but-”

“No buts, I thought you were running late.” Then she's out of her garden, and nudging me forward, and I'm walking and she's talking to me, asking me about you. Asking what made you worthy of her flowers. So I tell her.

“She was there for me at a time when I needed it most. I was… ill. Since I was a young boy, and for a time I thought I might not be able to go to school. I was lucky, the headmaster allowed me in, said that he'd make certain allowances for me because of my affliction, and that's where we met.”

The stranger, who told me her name but I forgot it almost immediately, is nodding, pressing for more.

“I got luckier, when I arrived I made friends. For the first time, there were people by my side because they wanted to be, not because they were bound by blood or duty. I hid my illness from them for a while, but they worked it out eventually, they weren't foolish. They agreed to help in whatever way they could. They went above and beyond. Then, when she was fourteen, she worked it out. She was a gentler presence than my other friends, and brought me balance, stability. She helped me with my work when I was sick and it was too hard, and take my notes from me when I was up all night trying to study. I was nearly sixteen when I realised I loved her.”

At this point, the stranger and I are nearly at the end of the walk, though she doesn't know it. I feel my palms get clammy as I walk, wanting to run from the intrusive woman next to me. She gives me an odd look as we walk through the gates, a look that turns to confusion as I walk through the rows, a look of sadness as I kneel and place the flowers next to your headstone,

“Lily Potter-born 30 January 1960 died  31 October 1981,

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

The stranger looks at the name next to yours, carved on the headstone you share, and whispers “you never told her, did you?” I sit down next to you, next to the flourishing cactus in its faded red pot, and the chipped vase with the nearly dead tulips from Wednesday.

The stranger is still there, she's asking me about you, and I don't want to tell her. Not about you, or James, or even Harry. I can’t tell her how I want to find him, raise him if I could. Nor can I tell her about how much your sister loathed you, and how much she must loathe that little orphan boy. But, I’m not family, I’m not even his godfather, and god knows Sirius can’t take him in, not now.

I can't tell her about Sirius or Peter, it's still too raw. Sometimes, when something happens, I start to write to you, or James, or them. Usually, I just reach for the paper before I remember, but once of twice I’ve gotten halfway through the letter before coming to my senses. I always finish them though, and they’re here behind the cactus.

So I begin to tell the stranger, “I loved her, but not romantically. Not even like a sister, I loved her because she was so easy to love. Her and James, they were perfect for each other, with him it was almost like you didn’t get a chance to love her like that, but it never bothered me, she was just so wonderful. She cared you see, they had this cat that she found while she was pregnant, all feral and grumpy, and she took it home and within the week it was purring like crazy, wouldn’t leave her alone. I bought her flowers for years, it began as a joke, when I got ill she’d always give me the most outrageous bouquets, enormous things that took up the whole of my bedside table and always got the most ridiculous looks from the nurse, or the boys in my dorm when I was well enough to go back. So after we left school, I’d give her flowers whenever I saw her, even if we were just meeting for coffee. One time, I planted a tree right in the middle of in her garden with James, she chased us around it for ruining her lawn, then laughed and said that James could cut the grass from then on. That was in september, so James never had to cut it.”

The stranger sits next to me, and pats me awkwardly on the arm. “My husband died six years after we were married, he was driving to pick my sister up from the train station, I didn’t know she was coming to visit, it was a surprise for my birthday,” she sighs, “it was raining and a lorry skidded, smashed straight into the car and it rolled, six or seven times they told me. Our four year old daughter was in the car. I was 27.”

“So you know how hollow the words ‘I’m sorry’ are too then?” I ask, absentmindedly weaving the daisies into a crown for you. The stranger stands clumsily, and looks towards the sky.

“It’s been over thirty years and I still hear it almost every week,” looking down at me the stranger smiles sadly as says, “you’re welcome to any flowers from my garden, anytime.” As she leaves, I wonder how it is that you and James still manage to get me to talk to other people, even months after you left.

It’s been nearly five months, and I still miss you. I went to the funeral alone, in the little church overlooking this graveyard. It felt like I was mourning everyone, not just you and James. Sirius in a top security cell in Azkaban. Peter scattered across that street. I’m all that’s left, the lone marauder. Literally the lone wolf, funny that. I can imagine James and Sirius would laugh, but you wouldn’t. You’d say that I could never be alone, not really, that there would always be someone there for me. But I lost the four of you at once, I doubt you imagined that would happen.

I can sit here for hours, especially now the weather’s warming up, but this is one of my shorter visits. As I stand up to go, I talk to you. I know I can’t keep coming here this often, it’s unhealthy, but what else is there for me to do? War gave me purpose, something to live for. Is it irony that fighting for my life made it worth living?

I turn to walk away, and I’m two steps away when a warm breeze fills the air with the smell of lilies. I look up and smile, truly smile for the first time in months. As I leave, I hear your voice in the back of my head, “pull yourself together Moony, don’t waste what we don’t have.”

I will live my life, for Lily, for James, for Peter. 

**Author's Note:**

> update- I found the prompt I used for this after losing it ages ago, here it is http://awful-aus.tumblr.com/post/116941769918/awful-au-196 ! (Better late than never, eh?)


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